Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 213: Celestial Shuttle Crash Site
Yu Sheng calmed his mind and reached out to the distant coordinates. His awareness spread, turning the giant warehouse Door before him into a target for his mapping. He quickly adjusted his state, then began trying to transform the huge warehouse Door into a passage leading to Otherworld Valley, just as he would normally open a “Door.”
Bai Li Qing and Song Cheng instinctively held their breath. They watched with rapt attention. Behind Bai Li Qing, a faintly visible pair of eyes appeared in the air, silently observing everything that ordinary sight could never perceive.
“Can you see anything?” Bai Li Qing asked in her mind.
“I don’t understand it,” responded the slightly mechanical voice in her head, “but I can see two sets of spatial coordinates overlapping. It’s… astounding. Normally, you’d need a tremendous amount of energy to ‘fold’ space-time like this. Yet here, there isn’t even a breeze, as if the structure of reality was always meant to overlap this way.”
A quiet humming interrupted the voice in Bai Li Qing’s mind. In the next instant, the center of the massive warehouse Door gave a small shudder. Immediately after, a distant “landscape” emerged within the Door’s frame.
The passage had formed. The scenery of the Valley appeared before everyone—or rather, at that moment, the Valley from the far-off Otherworld truly “arrived” in this place.
Yu Sheng kept one hand pressed against the doorframe. He looked up at the astonishing “Door” and felt surprised himself.
“It actually worked?” he muttered. “[How in the world does this even function…]”
The moment he spoke, Irene’s voice came from near his feet. “Huh?! You opened the Door yourself—who else would you ask?”
Yu Sheng ignored the little doll and kept pondering, then glanced at his hand resting on the frame. Indeed, it felt “easy” to maintain. Apparently, as long as it was a Door, it would do. But what was a “Door” at its core? How did it decide what counted as a Door? If this giant warehouse Door worked, then what about city gates or valve doors? Even bigger ones, or something more abstract?
A roar of engines shook Yu Sheng from his thoughts. He looked up to see the convoy of trucks, loaded with supplies and people, already starting up under Song Cheng’s command, heading through the newly opened passage.
Bai Li Qing walked over, still wearing her usual stoic expression. Yet, there was a certain look in her eyes as she gazed at the gateway.
“How long can you keep it open?” she asked, curious.
“Maybe a few hours,” Yu Sheng said after thinking for a moment, pointing to the hand he still had on the frame. “Mostly, my arm will get tired if I stay here too long. If I lift my hand, the Door closes.”
Bai Li Qing: “…So besides ‘getting tired,’ there’s no other cost?”
“Well, I might get a bit sleepy,” Yu Sheng replied uncertainly. “I’ve never tried opening a single Door for a long stretch before. Usually, it’s only a few seconds to step through. But once the passage is formed, it doesn’t really need extra energy. I even set up a fixed Door in the basement at my house, and that one stays open all the time.”
Bai Li Qing’s expression grew more intrigued, though her features remained frosty enough to hide it. After a moment of thought, she motioned toward the portal. “Mind if I cross over for a look?”
“Sure, no problem,” Yu Sheng said with a smile, looking as though he’d expected this. “We’ll go once the convoy’s through—I need to be last.”
With the large passage in place, it didn’t take long for the entire convoy to enter the Valley. Soon, Bai Li Qing, Yu Sheng, and the others also stepped through the giant warehouse Door and found themselves in this land of eternal daylight and mild weather.
Song Cheng gaped at his surroundings.
“I heard people say this place had changed, but I wouldn’t have believed it unless I saw it myself. The reports claimed that ‘Nightveil Valley’ turned into… this.” Captain Song gazed around at the wide valley floor and the towering mountains under a bright blue sky. He instinctively reached into his pocket for a cigarette. “Remarkable, really…”
“No smoking here,” Irene announced immediately. She ran up to Song Cheng and held out her hand. “Fifty bucks, please.”
Song Cheng froze, staring at the unlit cigarette in his fingers. “But I didn’t even light it yet.”
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Irene spoke with complete confidence. “Then hurry up and light it, and give me the fifty.”
“Just ignore her,” Yu Sheng said with a helpless grin and waved them off. “But seriously, don’t smoke here. It’s taken a lot of work to restore the Valley’s environment. You wouldn’t believe how much effort it took me to get all this greenery back.”
Bai Li Qing said nothing. She was busy scanning everything, her pale-gray eyes seeming to capture and store the Valley’s every detail. After a while, she finally broke her silence. “Indeed, compared to what the Special Affairs Bureau could arrange for a Containment Facility, this place has better conditions overall.”
Yu Sheng accepted her praise readily, flashing a grin as he led everyone forward. Along the way, he explained how the camp area was prepared.
The head of the engineering team was a broad, solidly built middle-aged man who looked dependable. Following behind Yu Sheng, he gazed at the large platform in the center of the Valley and the basic camp infrastructure. His repeated exclamations showed he was quite impressed.
Yu Sheng pointed out different spots. That large circle was the Portal Platform—though at the moment, there was only a single Door on it. Off to the side was the vegetable plot, though it would need a greenhouse later. Near the edge of the platform was a chicken coop, currently tended by a Fox. Down by the camp, they had drainage channels and a foundation for a generator. The bigger structure on the far side could act as a warehouse. And that odd ring of walls at the front of the building formed a sort of walled courtyard that was “entirely pointless,” so don’t ask why it existed—its purpose was unclear.
“Wow, this is way more than I expected,” the engineer remarked happily. “When I heard we were setting up a temporary base in a valley, I was prepared to lay foundations in the wild. I never guessed the site would be so well-equipped. Don’t worry; we’ll finish basic prefab housing, water, and power within twelve hours. The Cursed Children can move in immediately, and we’ll handle the rest step by step.”
“Good,” Bai Li Qing said with a nod, then turned to Yu Sheng. “I’ve already spoken with the Council. Most of the staff they assigned to the Orphanage will transfer here, especially the teachers who directly care for the children. They’ll stay in this Valley with the Cursed Children until the Dark Angels issue is resolved. We’ll use that warehouse from before for shipping supplies, so we’ll need you to keep opening the Door.”
“That’s easy,” Yu Sheng answered cheerfully. “My phone’s always on. Just call me when it’s time to open a Door.”
After sorting out procedures, surveys, and plans, the Special Affairs Bureau’s engineers began their work. They unloaded prefab housing units and set them up on the platforms prepared in advance. The generator was also offloaded to its designated area, where they started installing and testing it.
Yu Sheng knew next to nothing about construction and could only watch, bewildered. Irene, however, stayed keenly interested. She plopped down on a big rock nearby to watch the workers, like she could sit there until the end of time.
Yu Sheng quietly wondered if her fascination came from the fact that her current body was mostly made of stone and rebar.
Just then, Bai Li Qing approached.
“Could you take me to that ‘crash site’?” she asked.
Yu Sheng was not surprised at all. He figured half the reason the Director had come was to see the Valley’s various secrets for herself. They had discussed it earlier anyway, and today was a convenient time.
“Sure, no problem. The structure has stabilized a lot in the past couple of days, so it shouldn’t collapse anymore.” He nodded readily, then glanced at Foxy. “Come along. You know that place better than anyone.”
“I’m not going!” called Irene without turning. She waved a hand dismissively. “I’m staying here to watch them build.”
“Got it,” Yu Sheng replied. Before leaving, he gave one last reminder, “Don’t get too close to the machinery, okay? Watch out for blind spots. You’re pretty small, so it’s dangerous.”
At once, Irene’s face twisted in annoyance, but Yu Sheng pretended not to notice.
The so-called “crash site” lay several hundred meters beyond a small patch of woods. It was set into a recessed slope deep in the Valley.
Years ago, Foxy and her family had been aboard a vessel called the Celestial Shuttle when it crashed here in what was then “Night Valley.”
Back when Entity-Hunger had been destroyed, that fierce “feast” reshaped much of the Valley, chewing away large sections of the mountains. But even that feast had failed to obliterate the main part of the Celestial Shuttle. It only drove the wreckage deeper into the mountain and damaged the ground beneath the crash site, weakening the area’s stability.
After Yu Sheng “claimed” the Valley, he began slowly repairing this sector of the mountain. He shored up the geology around the Celestial Shuttle wreck and recently managed to move it closer to the surface. Now, most of the wreckage had been pulled free of the rock layers, resting more securely on the slope.
Yu Sheng led Bai Li Qing and Song Cheng to a sturdy stone overlook, from which they could view the bent shape of the spacecraft.
The twisted, hundred-meter-long metal hull lay quietly in the shattered rock, its interior framework faintly illuminated by flickers of light. Bent beams and supports jutted out like a skeletal rib cage, gaping at the sky, as though still telling the silent story of that violent crash so many years ago.
“This is the Celestial Shuttle Foxy was on,” Yu Sheng explained, pointing to the large wreckage. “There’s still a tiny bit of energy left inside. Foxy calls it a ‘cold glow’ that’s harmless now. But I still wouldn’t recommend going in… it’s not safe.”
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